


All the World's a Stage

by glorious_spoon



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Escape, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-10-23 04:38:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17676608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_spoon/pseuds/glorious_spoon
Summary: Peggy hadn't quite intended to wind up on the run from mob enforcers when she went to watch Angie's theater troupe rehearse, but these things did seem to happen to her.





	All the World's a Stage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Redrikki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redrikki/gifts).



“So, tell me, English, is this the kind of stuff you get up to all the time, or what?” Angie said, swinging slightly and stretching to reach the next beam, graceful and fearless as an acrobat even with her feet dangling over a good three stories of empty space. The floor of the theater seemed impossibly far away.

“Please concentrate on what you’re doing,” Peggy said tightly from the platform at the far end of the scaffolding. The catwalk that had hung above the stage was dangling from a single chain at the far end; Peggy had been close enough to leap to safety when it had snapped during their precipitous escape. Angie had managed--just barely--to cling to a bit of scaffolding before it had collapsed beneath her. “I’m nowhere near close enough to catch you if you fall.”

“What, this?” Angie sounded a little out of breath, but not much as she swung for the next beam. She had, Peggy calculated, just over two yards to go before Peggy could catch her. “Just like the monkey bars. Nothing to it.”

“Precisely what sort of jungle gyms do you have in New York?”

“Okay, more like swinging off the fire escapes in my Nan’s old building. What? Nothing else to do on a hot summer night after the theaters kick you out, huh?”

“I could think of quite a lot of things. Be careful—!”

Angie’s fingers started to slip, and she swung forward, hands outflung. The toe of her shoe hit the edge of the platform and began to slip, and Peggy lunged, heart in her throat, grabbing for the sturdy cotton fabric of Angie’s dress, her flailing arms. After a heart-stopping instant during which she was entirely sure that they were both about to plunge to their deaths, they tumbled back onto the platform. Peggy’s shoulders and the back of her head hit the metal grating with punishing force, most of Angie’s weight landing on her midsection.

“Ow,” she wheezed after a moment.

“See?” Angie said, slightly breathless. “Nothing to it. You worry too much, English.”

“I think you’re the first person who has ever said that to me,” Peggy managed, levering herself upright. The catwalk was still swinging wildly, the movement distracting enough that at first she didn’t see the silhouettes of two armed men ascending the steps on the far side. It was the sudden movement of an arm that caught her eye, the sudden gleam of a gun; she yanked Angie down, shielding her head, as the sound of a shot split the air, followed by the sharp sound of the bullet ricocheting off something metal in their immediate vicinity. “And not to be a worrywart, but I think we should run. Now.”

“With you on that one,” Angie said, allowing herself to be hauled up to her feet and down the stairs on the far side as another shot rang out. Hopefully, the downed catwalk would slow their pursuers long enough to get them to the ground floor, and freedom.

*

It had been supposed to be an ordinary rehearsal for Angie’s theater troupe, a motley group of aspiring actresses who’d somehow managed to talk their way into the good graces of the somewhat greasy gentleman who owned the decrepit theater they were now trying to escape.

In retrospect, the entire deal had clearly been too good to be true. Peggy and Angie had discovered as much when the car Howard had promised to send for the two of them not turned out to be fashionably late on an unseasonably snowy April evening, leaving them to duck back inside out of the cold and, not so incidentally, witness the handoff of what was likely a suitcase of dirty money between the owner and the two armed mob enforcers who were currently trying to gun them down.

“That Gladys,” Angie said, only slightly out of breath as they raced down the stairs. “I’m gonna kill her. I _knew_ it was a bad idea to listen to her cousin Jimmy. ‘Perfect place for you gals’ my left--”

“Do be quiet,” Peggy interrupted shortly.

“If they’re smart, they’ll go back down across the stage,” Angie said, after they cleared another landing, thin and breathless and still sounding entirely irrepressible. “Harry’ll be able to unlock the door for ‘em.”

“How convenient,” Peggy panted. “And how unfortunate for him that I’ll be arresting him the moment I see him.”

“How’re you gonna manage that?” Angie asked. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re a little outgunned--oh,” she added, as Peggy pulled her Beretta out of its conveniently hidden holster. “Coulda used that earlier.”

“There were three of them, and you’re unarmed. I wasn’t about to get into a gun battle when we could--oh, wonderful.” They’d come to a door at the bottom of the stairs, but it was secured with a rusty steel padlock. “I don’t suppose you know of another way out.”

“Not one where we won’t get shot at,” Angie said, shouldering her out of the way and yanking out a hairpin, sending half of her carefully styled stage hairdo tumbling down in a messy cascade of curls. “Let me take a look.”

“I don’t know what you think you’ll--oh.” Angie untwisted the hairpin with a quick, deft motion and inserted it into a lock. A moment later, she made a soft, pleased noise and the lock popped open. Very dryly, Peggy added, “We could have used that earlier.”

“We were in a little bit of a hurry,” Angie said, grinning, and pushed the door open onto a grimy alleyway, gloomy and choked with snow.

“Quite.” There were thudding footsteps behind them, in the hallway that led to the stage, hollow on the loose boards. Their pursuers would be on them in moments. Peggy shoved Angie out into the alleyway and said, speaking as quickly and quietly as she could, “Run to the nearest shop and ring the Bell Company offices. Ask for Rose Roberts and tell her our situation. She should be on shift. Tell her I need immediate back-up.”

“What are you going to—”

“Go!” Peggy snapped, and gave her another shove, spinning toward the door with her gun held up.

“Aw, you gotta be kidding me,” Angie said, but an instant later she was gone, quick footsteps retreating down to the far end of the alley.

The door burst open. The two men on the other side of it were too large to fit through it together, and they’d clearly been expecting a pair of cowering, terrified young women, not one very cross, very _armed_ SSR agent. Peggy squeezed off a shot before either of them seemed to have taken in the situation; one man fell, and the second had just long enough to swear and swing his gun up toward her before she shot him, too.

Behind them was Harry Trentino, theater owner and erstwhile money launderer for the mob. He gaped at her, then at the two felled goons, then turned on his heels and fled.

“Oh, for the love of—” Peggy holstered her pistol, stepped neatly around the two men--at least one of whom was still groaning, but neither of whom was in any condition to grab at her--and raced after him. Trentino wasn’t an especially tall man, but he had the advantage of both a head start and blind panic, and by the time she made it across the hall and onto the stage, feet pounding on the polished wood, he was out the door on the far side and into the night.

Peggy swore under her breath and put on a fresh burst of speed. An instant later, she was stumbling out into the chilly dusk, her breath pluming around her face as she looked around wildly for any sign of Trentino. The pavement wasn’t especially busy this late in the day--or perhaps, in the theater district, this _early_ \--but there were enough people about to obscure him from view. 

“Damn,” she muttered, and on a hunch, turned left and started jogging. That way was the main street, and better odds for Trentino to catch a cab or slip away into an open shop. She wasn't likely to catch up to him now, not on foot. She’d have to come back with a team of agents and—

There was the sudden roar of an engine, and she jerked around as a large black car screeched to a stop beside her. She had just reached for her gun when the back door flung open and Angie leaned out, bright-eyed and grinning with her disheveled hair flopping over her face. “Come on, Peggy, our ride’s here!” 

“I passed by Mr. Trentino rushing up the pavement on the way in,” Mr. Jarvis added from the front seat. “We should be able to intercept him if we hurry.”

“Oh,” Peggy said, and laughed suddenly, and scrambled into the backseat, pulling the door shut behind her. The big towncar pulled away from the curb, putting on speed at what Mr. Jarvis would usually consider an alarming rate.

“Good evening, Miss Carter,” he said from the front seat, as he floored the gas pedal and slipped under a yellow light to much outraged honking. “My apologies for the delay.”

“Better late than never,” Peggy said, breathless and grinning. “Now drive, if you please!”


End file.
